Labour mandate may be too ‘extreme’: councillor

Mayor Rob Ford’s employee and labour relations committee has issued a set of instructions — “extreme” by one account, “responsible” by another — to negotiators embroiled in a tense round of contract talks with the city’s public sector unions.

The decision was made in a private session, and therefore the details remain confidential. But at least one member of the opposition had an ominous reaction, and wished the administration “good luck.”

“I just think this is quite an extreme mandate that we haven’t seen in the city before, and I hope the negotiators can negotiate a successful agreement but I’m concerned that with this mandate they won’t,” said Councillor Janet Davis, who sat in on the private session.

Related

The contracts of CUPE Local 416, which represents about 6,000 outside city workers, and Local 79, which represents about 22,000 inside workers, expired on Dec. 31. Both sides have been ratcheting up the rhetoric in recent weeks, with 416 president Mark Ferguson insisting that the Ford administration is bent on locking out city employees. The city has asked the Ministry of Labour to appoint conciliators to both Local 79 and 416 talks to help them reach a deal. In the event of an impasse, either side can ask for a “no board report;” about 17 days later, either side would be in a legal position to strike or lockout.

Deputy Mayor Holyday said he does not believe the marching orders given Thursday increase the likelihood of a strike or lockout.

“It’s certainly a tough situation, we know that, I’m not going to downplay it,” said Mr. Holyday. “We do want some changes in the contract, we want to get management rights back in the hands of management. We’re willing to talk about wages and benefits, we’re willing to talk about anything else they wish to speak about, but the only way this can happen is if they come to the table.”

He said Locals 79 and 416 haven’t refused to meet with the conciliator, but accused them of not coming to table with meaningful proposals. “As you know from the past experience their strategy is to play this out to the good weather. Two out of the last three times they did that, and along comes June or end of May and they strike us, and we’re trying to avoid that this time,” he said.

A representative from CUPE was not immediately available for comment, but officials said the city had canceled a bargaining meeting this week. But it responded with fact sheets to City Manager Joseph Pennachetti’s statement this week saying that the City of Toronto has the most restrictive collective bargaining language of any municipality in Canada. Job security provisions require the city to find a permanent employee whose position has been contracted out another within the workforce. A survey of 248 CUPE municipal contracts found that less than 30% had no provisions restricting contracting out the municipality in the collective agreement, according to the union.

Councillor Janet Davis, a member of the left-leaning opposition, lamented that the instructions do not reflect the views of council, or the city. “I think the people of Toronto would like to see the city negotiate a fair collective agreement for the city and for the employees and we avoid a labour disruption,” she said.

Councillor Minnan-Wong, a member of the Mayor’s executive, said the committee does not want to inconvenience the public, but it also wants to get a deal that is “fair and reasonable and affordable” to taxpayers.

“We started this process way back in October because we want a deal,” he said. “I would say that the direction that we’re headed in is one that Torontonians would be 100% in support of.”